Nobody is talking about Jeremiah Masoli’s potential as a high first-round draft pick or debating whether he should stay in school another year at Oregon or cast his lot with the NFL.

Nobody is proclaiming Masoli as one of the best athletes to play his position in Pac-10 history. No professional baseball teams are pursuing him just in case his football career fizzles at some point.

That would be Washington quarterback Jake Locker drawing all the athletic accolades and speculation. But it was Masoli who got the job done when it mattered most Saturday as quarterback of the Oregon Ducks, flawlessly driving his team’s diverse offense and using misdirection and deception to beat the Huskies on critical plays in a 43-19 blowout

UW quarterback Jake Locker threw for 266 yards against Oregon, but had two critical interceptions near the goal line. (Getty Images/Otto Greule Jr.)

Certainly Locker is a better athlete than the 5-foot-11, 220-pound Masoli. But when Oregon got down inside the 5-yard line, it was Masoli who proved impossible to stop as he twice scored on short touchdown runs after play-faking the Husky front out of position and waltzing through gaping holes up front.

Meanwhile, the Huskies continued their terrible struggles inside the 5 despite the multi-dimensional threat of Locker, who should be money in that situation.

Used to be the Huskies would run option plays near the goal line, using Locker’s speed and strength. But this season they’ve steered clear of that ploy, instead trying to jam the ball up the middle unsuccessfully as happened repeatedly at Notre Dame and again several times Saturday against the Ducks.

And when that hasn’t worked, they’ve rolled Locker out on slow-developing pass-run options that fail to take full advantage of his speed and power along the line of scrimmage.

The Huskies had six plays inside the 10-yard line in the first half Saturday and came away with just three points, thwarted completely on their second thrust into the red zone when Locker threw an interception on fourth-and-goal from the 1 on a rollout play where he ran out of room and just threw the ball up for grabs.

At the time, Washington trailed just 8-3, but Oregon responded by driving 80-yards on its ensuing possession to completely swing the game’s early momentum.

On their second drive of the third quarter, the Huskies moved to Oregon’s 22 before Locker was intercepted again at the 4-yard line.

Three trips into prime position and just three points to show for it.

Game, set, match.

On the other side, Masoli was money in the red zone. The junior has a myriad of options to call upon when Oregon nears paydirt and Washington was incapable of stopping any of them.

Four times Oregon trooped into the red zone. Four times they scored touchdowns. It’s no accident. The Ducks have now scored touchdowns 19 times in 26 red-zone chances this season. Washington is 14 of 27 on the same statistic.

It’s a glaring difference, the ability to capitalize when opportunity arises.

Steve Sarkisian said he liked the play-calls, even on fourth-and-goal at the 1 when Locker got picked off.

“I liked what we had set up going in,” Sarkisian said. “It wasn’t there. I thought we were going to get Locker to the edge a couple of times today. Maybe we miscalculated their team speed.”

Locker also got run down on another opportunity, a two-point conversion attempt from the 1-yard line, when he headed for the right pylon but either hesitated or didn’t have his normal burst and was hauled down by two tacklers.

Locker suffered cramps late in the game and has taken a beating in recent weeks, but insisted he was fine physically. If that’s the case, he’s slowing himself down by thinking too much, caught in no-man’s land between his natural instincts to run and his coach’s instructions to look downfield first for the pass.

“This is a very fine line we’re operating with, when we’re trying to change the complexion of a guy’s game,” Sarkisian said. “I knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight. … We’re going to have some growing pains and not just Jake, but as a football program.

“The challenge for us – and for Jake – is to learn from these games and learn from this style of play. Where is the happy medium? Where can he take the running style he had previously and where can he fit in this scheme that we’re running?”

Matching an individual’s talents with a team’s scheme was never so obvious as Saturday, with Masoli orchestrating Oregon’s attack like a maestro.

Masoli completed 14 of 22 passes for 157 yards with no interceptions. Locker was 23 for 44 for 266 yards, but his two interceptions were killers.

But more glaring was the ground game. Despite his immense threat as a rusher, Locker ran the ball just three times from scrimmage for 5 yards and was sacked four times for minus 21 yards. Masoli carried nine times for 85 yards and was sacked twice for minus 31.

Nobody is going to say Masoli is a better running threat than Locker, but he made hay in his team’s offensive scheme.

“The big issue was the quarterback scrambling,” said UW defensive coordinator Nick Holt. “We had some pressure and he got out and made some plays. My hat’s off to him. He’s a good little nifty player.”

Masoli’s two touchdown runs came from the 3 and the 1 on the same misdirection play where he faked an inside handoff, watched Washington’s line chase the back and then ran it himself up the gut untouched.

The Huskies, meanwhile, can’t find a way to get a tough yard down by the goal line if a bowl game depended on it. Which, in hindsight, it probably has given the failures at Notre Dame and now against Oregon when the game was still hung in the balance.

They tried freshman tailback Demitrius Bronson for two runs inside the 4, but he couldn’t score.

They tried rolling Locker out but he twice failed to connect.

Never did they just put Locker in the shotgun, spread the field with four wide receivers and let him run a QB draw. Never did they give him the ball with a fullback dive and a running back running wide and let him run the option.

“I don’t know,” Sarkisian said of the struggle inside the 5-yard-line. “We’ll assess that in the bye week. Our goal-line offense is something we have to assess, if what we’re doing fits our personnel and vice versa so that we’re executing to a high level. Because when you’re down there, you have got to score touchdowns.”

He’ll get no argument from Husky fans. The problem has become glaring for this particular team, which is stunning given the athleticism and options Locker presumably presents on plays at the goal line.

Time is running out. Four games remain in this season and the Huskies sit at 3-5. And whether Jake Locker comes back for another year or decides to go pro, Sarkisian desperately needs to find a way to best take advantage of his athletic skills while he’s still wearing purple.